The Daughter, C.B. Cooper [ink book reader TXT] 📗

himself at the door, and raised his hand to knock, but before he could, it was thrown open.
Gracie stood in the doorway, her eyes wild. Behind her, from a back bedroom, Sam could hear a woman shrieking.
"Is she alright?"
Gracie shook her head, tears glistening in her eyes, "She's— fine. Just a bit addled today. She doesn’t know what she's doing when she's got the fever."
Worried, Sharp asked, "Would you like me talk with her? Pray with her, perhaps?"
Gracie shook her head wildly, "No! No, Reverend, she wouldn’t want company right now."
From the back room, there was more screaming. This time, he could make out the words. "You Fucking demon! Get out off my house! Your going to burn in hell for the things you've done!"

Startled, Sam looked at Gracie, "Is she talking to you?"
Tears slipped down the girls face as she bowed her head, embarrassed by her mothers behavior. It was then, that he noticed the big red scratches running down Gracie's forearm.
Grabbing her arm, he looked at the welts more closely. Welts left by fingernails.
"Did she do this to you?"
Gracie didn’t answer, just slowly nodded her head, affirming his suspicion.
"Is she abusing you?"
"She doesn’t know what she's doing when the fevers got her. She gets such bad headaches, she just goes crazy."
Letting go of her arm, he told her, "Go outside, Gracie. I'm going to go and talk to your mother."
"You cant!" she pleaded desperately. "She doesn’t like strangers. She wouldn’t like you in her bedroom. And, and she'll blame me."
"She ain't blaming nobody, now go wait outside for me."
Gracie reluctantly did as she was told, leaving Sam alone in the house.
Following her sounds from the back, he made his way to the bedroom.
Pushing open the door, he stood in shock, staring at the woman he had once loved. The woman that had bore his child.
Loretta was lying in the middle of the bed, staring up at the ceiling, mumbling incoherently. She looked nothing like he had remembered.
The woman's eyes were sunken in, her face gaunt and her complexion sallow. She resembled a skeleton with paper-thin skin stretched over it.
Reverend Sharp had seen milk fever before, and this wasn’t it. The headaches, the weight loss, acting insane, if he were to stab a guess, he'd guess it was brain tumors.
Loretta must of caught a glimpse of him, because her eyes rolled towards where he stood.
Her glassy, bloodshot eyes, carefully looked him over.
Stepping further into the room, he said gently, "Loretta?"
A slow smile spread across her thin face, "You came back," she whispered. "After all these years, you came back."
Sam stood in mute silence. He didn’t know what to say, he was shocked that she remembered him.
Slowly sitting up in bed, Loretta ran a thin, pale hand, through her once lustrous hair. "I must look a'fright. I wish I'd a known you were comin'. I would have made myself presentable," she mumbled.
Mustering up a smile, he told her, "You look fine, Loretta, just fine."
Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she attempted to stand. The first time she tried, her thin legs collapsed under her, dropping her back onto the mattress.
Sam hurried over to help her. She clung to his arm as he helped her up.
Raising a hand, she pointed to her vanity. Guiding her across the room he helped her get settled in the old cane backed chair.
Looking into the mirror, Loretta picked up a hair brush and began running it through her hair, talking to her reflection. "Loretta James, how do you expect to land a man looking like this." She scolded herself.
Sam stood behind her, watching the brush as it combed through her dry, brittle hair.
"How will you ever leave this dump behind, unless you find a prince to take you away? You were made for better things. Expensive gowns and ballroom parties, men in fancy dress falling at your feet. Everyone basking in your glorious beauty."
With each stroke of the boar bristled brush, it pulled away big clumps of her hair, the desiccated locks falling from the brush and dropping into her lap.
"Some day you'll live in a faraway castle, married to a rich and powerful man…"
Her eyes caught his in the mirror and locked.
Her face went from dreamy to distraught, scared.
The hand holding the brush shook as her eyes rounded. Then, without warning, she opened her mouth and screamed.
Sam jumped back as the scream reached its peak, then began falling, until the noise resembled that of a whimpering dog.
"Loretta? Are you alright?" he tried to ask, but was cut off when she began screaming, "Get out! Get out, get out, GET OUT!"
Shrieking, she threw the brush at the dusty mirror, shattering it, the glass shards tinkering to the wooden floor.
Reverend Sharp stood watching her thin back, as it heaved, her breath coming in gasps.
After a minute her breathing slowed, returning to normal and she began to rise, grasping the edges of the vanity as she stood.
With her legs under her, she turned. "You came back." She smiled again. "I knew you would. I told myself that everyday— that’s how I've managed to survive all these years."
She began walking towards him, but tripped at the last moment, falling into his arms. He tried to stand her back up, but she shoved against him with alarming strength, the momentum pushing him backward until his legs caught on the edge of her bed and toppled them both over, Loretta landing on top of him with a grunt.
Sam stared at her, his eyes round.
"I know what you want, " she sang, her warm fetid breath washing over his face, assailing his nostrils.
He fought the urge to vomit and begged her, "Loretta, please."
"Please?" she asked, smiling. "You don’t have to beg. You can have me all you want, any way

you want."
She began grinding herself into his pelvis. "Come on, Cowboy, I need to feel your big cock," she breathed.
"Loretta!" Turning his face to the side, he tried to escape the rotten smell of her breath, "Loretta, please get off of me," he gritted. "Your sick. You don’t know what your saying…"
"Momma? Momma!" Gracie yelled as she ran to the bed. She spoke in a rush as she began trying to pry her mother off of him. "Oh, Reverend Sharp! I'm so sorry! You have to forgive her, she doesn’t know what she's doing!"
As soon as he was free, Sam rolled to the edge of the bed, and jumped to his feet. Smoothing his clothes in an effort to collect himself, he assured her, "It's alright Gracie. I know she's confused."
Gracie got Loretta back into bed, her head propped up on the pillows, then went to stand next to the reverend, at the foot at the bed.
Loretta watched them both, her eyes glossy, moving from one to the other, then she smiled, her lips pulling back from her teeth in a half-snarl. "Well, well, well. What do we have here?" she crackled. "The devil and his spawn, together at last."
"Momma…" Gracie warned.
"Don’t you momma

, me, Demon." Loretta spit. "I aint yor momma. I wasn’t nothing but a vessel for the Devil to grow his seed."
"Please, Momma. Don’t do this." Gracie begged.
Loretta's eyes locked with Sam's. "You’re the devil," she accused, then she went back to Gracie. "Your both the devil," she spit.
"Momma…"
Your both the devil!" she shouted again, "Your both the devil! Your both the devil!"

Sam stirred the fire, "I grabbed Gracie by the arm and drug her out of that room as fast as I could. The next time I saw Loretta, I was burying her."
Zeb didn’t know quite what to say. He felt completely exhausted just listening to Sam's stories. "Maybe we should hit the hay. We should probably git an early start tomorrow, anyway."
His thoughts still a thousand miles away and years behind him, Sharp mumbled, "Yeah. That sounds good. G'night Zeb.
"G'night, Son."

Sam had a dream that night. In it, he was sitting on the back of his old horse by a creek, under the branches of a giant oak. The sun was just starting to set, and the western sky was streaked in various shades of purple and pink.
From somewhere behind him came a familiar voice. "Oh," she cried, "You came back! I was so scared I'd never see you again!"
"Loretta?" he turned, watching her run out from behind the tree. His breath caught in his throat as he watched her run towards him. God, she was beautiful thing he'd ever seen. And to think, he had almost left her…
She stood at his knee, smiling up at him, her cheeks rosey, her dark hair like smooth waves of chocolate silk.
Sam climbed down out of the saddle, and as his boots hit the ground, her lips were already pressed into his. Her kiss was deep and passionate, drawing an immediate response from him. When he was finally able to pull away to catch his breath, he noticed tears shining in her eyes.
"Why are you crying?" he murmured, suddenly worried.
She smiled through the tears, "I'm just so happy. I was so worried that you wouldn’t come. I was afraid you'd skip town and that I would never see you again." Her eyes became serious, "I would rather die than have to return to that farm."
Sam felt his heart squeeze in his chest, "How could I ever leave such a beautiful creature behind?"
She laughed again, happy and relieved, and when she kissed him for the second time, she let him know just how happy she was.
They couldn’t get each others clothes off fast enough, their hands shaking and hearts pounding, they laughed.
Sam held her out at arms length and let his eyes roam her magnificent body. She stood proud, without an ounce of shyness, and let him look for as long as he wanted. If he could have studied her for a century, he wouldn’t have found one single flaw— she was perfect.
The shape and swell of her breasts, the flat plains of her stomach, the perfect flair of her round hips, the shape of her long legs…
When his eyes traveled back up and met hers once again, they were filled desire, longing.
Scooping her up, he took her back to their spot under the tree and laid her in the grass.
They made love more slowly this time, taking the time to get to know each other, to discover each others bodies fully.
Sam lay on his back, watching Loretta as she moved above him, listening to her moans of pleasure as she rode them both to the edge, and then over the brink, until they were both tumbling, lost in desire.
Afterwards, they lay in a heap, both satisfied, both completely exhausted.
Loretta was on top, her face nuzzling in his neck. Sam smiled into her hair. He couldn’t remember ever being so… happy.
"You were incredible," he whispered.
He felt her sigh against his neck, "You too… Daddy

."
Sam jerked. Grabbing her shoulders he shoved her away so he could look at her face. It was Gracie's eyes that smiled down at him, "What's wrong, Daddy?"
"What the fuck," he choked, pushing her even further way as he scrambled to get away from her.
An evil laugh came from the tree behind him.
Spinning around, he watched Gracie, Angel

, dressed all in black, walk out from behind the giant oak.
She laughed again, her black eyes sparkling, enjoying her herself immensely, "You humans are too easy," she